Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/42

 I insert my relations for the information of my readers, who may see that without mingling in politics I had occupation enough.

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Regulations for the private brigade de sûreté.

Art. 1. "The private brigade de sûreté is divided into four detachments. Each of the agents commanding one detachment receives his instructions from his chief, and he receives his orders of surveillance and manœuvre from the chief of the second division of the prefecture of police; with whom he must consult every day, and whenever it may be necessary for the maintenance of order and the security of persons and property. He shall make a return to him every morning of the result of the surveillance of the preceding evening and night of his brigade, and every chief of a detachment shall bring his private report.

2. "The private agents shall exercise a severe and active surveillance to prevent offences; they shall arrest, as well on the public way as at the cabarets, and other public places, persons escaped from fetters and prisons; the freed galley-slaves who cannot show any permission for residing in Paris; those who have been sent away from the capital to their own homes, to remain there under the surveillance of the local authorities, conformably to the penal code, and who have returned to Paris unauthorized; as well as those apprehended in the very act of robbery. They shall conduct these latter before the commissary of police of the quarter, to whom they shall make their report, to inform him of the reasons for apprehending these suspected persons. In case this public functionary should be absent, they shall leave them at the nearest station, and carefully search them in presence of the commandant then on duty, that it may be correctly stated as to what property was found upon them. They shall always ask of these suspected persons their abode, to verify subsequently, and